Chapter Three
LIFE IN THE FLEET
Many, many hours later, Lieutenant La Forge was in his quarters. It was a simple room, almost like a hotel, with French doors, potted plants, a fifty two inch widescreen TV, two beds, and other essentials, like a powder room. This whole place was a lovely place to stay, but was still a partial prison. As Geordi lay back in his bed, stretching his weary back (there had been a lot of walking and seminars about the new environment in which they were staying) when there was a knock at the door.
"Hold on!" Geordi called, getting out of bed and jogging to the door. He opened it and his jaw pretty much fell off of his face.
At the door was a blue skinned alien in a small leather top that extended down her left arm. She appeared to be of the same species that Malgus' servant was, although Geordi had a feeling that she was not an enemy. She wore tight fitting black pants and a lightsaber was at her hip. Her greenish-yellow eyes shone in the dim light. She had all the curves in the right places, great skin…she was insanely hot.
"Uh…" Geordi stammered. He managed to get himself composed as he said, "Can I help you?"
"This is room 4494A, yes?" the woman asked. A thick French accent was prominent in her speech patterns.
"Um, yes," La Forge replied. "Card?" She held up her card and La Forge took a quick look and said, "Well, it looks like you're my roommate. Come on in." The woman walked into the room, hips swaying. La Forge had a hard time staying focused, especially that his visor gave him more detail.
"Hey, can I ask you something?" La Forge asked as he closed the door. "Um, I don't mean to be offensive, but…what are those things hanging off of your head?"
"These?" the woman asked, holding one of her head tentacles in her hand for a moment. "For my species, Twi'lek, these are brain extensions. All Twi'leks have at least one."
"Oh…I see," La Forge replied, sitting down on the bed as she sat down on the other. "What's your name?"
"I am Aayla Secura, Jedi Knight," the woman said.
"Wow, there's a lot of these Jedi folks around here," Geordi remarked.
"There are over ten thousand in our Order – and they've all been transported to one ship or another."
"What?" Geordi gasped. "You entire Order? Gone?"
"Any being in any dimension that had some kind of unique skill was brought here," Aayla replied. "And what can I call you?"
"Oh, me?" Geordi asked. "Well, uh, you can call me Geordi. Full name's Geordi La Forge. I'm a Lieutenant Commander and head engineer aboard the Enterprise."
"The U.S.S. Enterprise?" Aayla asked. "I have met many from that vessel already, including its captain, its devilishly handsome first officer, and that android…"
"Oh, Data! Yeah, I know who you're talking about," La Forge said. "Just to warn you, he can be socially awkward sometimes – he's still trying to understand human interactions."
"Or do you mean non-machine interactions?" Aayla asked.
"Yes, sorry," La Forge apologized. Why can't I get an introduction with a girl straight for ONCE?!
"Relax, a lot of men have your problems."
What the?! How did she do that?
"You cannot hide your thoughts from me," Aayla said. "I am a Jedi. I can sense the thoughts of others."
"Damn it!" Geordi grumbled.
"Relax, I won't use my powers unwisely," Aayla smiled. "But I can sense you are tense. Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, I'm just exhausted…" Geordi said, taking off his visor and rubbing his eyes. Aayla withdrew with shock.
"What's wrong with your eyes?" she exclaimed.
"Oh, this was something I was born with," Geordi exclaimed, pointing to his white eyes. He put the visor back on and said, "This visor helps me se in all sorts of ways – ultraviolet, x-ray, infrared, you name it."
"Can you see just plain wavelengths?" Aayla asked as she sat down beside him. "Can you see the world as it really is?"
"I'm afraid not," La Forge explained sadly. "It's the one thing I can't see. God, I wish I could though…" But just then he felt a hand slid up his own. He looked down and saw the blue hand slid up his arm and on his shoulder.
"But you don't need to see to feel this…" Aayla smiled. Her eyes had changed color, but Geordi was too distracted as he fell back on the bed, the beautiful alien on top of him.
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"You have five seconds to tell me where my ship is!" Picard snapped at Acreb. Losing his ship and over twelve hundred good men and women with it was unacceptable. Two Jedi were standing just a small ways off. One was a tall man with short, dark, wavy born hair, dashing blue eyes, muscular build, and wearing dark robes and shoulder pads. The other was a man with shoulder-length blonde hair with matching beard and mustache, light colored robes, and dark boots. Both of them were trying to make sure that Picard got his ship, but at the same time preventing the instigation of violence.
"I told you already," Acreb growled. "I – don't – know!"
"Captain, stop!" the dark-haired man snarled. "You think violence is going to get you back your crew?"
"There are over a thousand crewmen and women and HUNDREDS of children unaccounted for, Jedi!" Picard hissed. "I will not stop until I see them safe!"
"Pointless bickering will give you neither your ship nor your crew!" the second Jedi insisted.
"Picard, I get why you want that crew found," Acreb stated simply. "But it is the same answer – I – do – not – know. We are looking for more than fifty thousand ships of Federation, Klingon, Republic, Borg, Separatist, and a hundred other fac…"
"YOU'RE ASSISTING THE BORG?" Picard screamed at the top of his lungs. Acreb jumped out of his chair and shot a shower of purple lightning. Picard dropped fast, and the attack ceased.
"They will obey our orders," Acreb said slowly as Counselor Troi, who was watching the proceedings, pulled him to his feet.
"And what makes you think that?!" Troi spat. Picard's eyes widened – Troi was never this cruel.
"One of our minor ships alone," Acreb explained. "Has at least ten stars the size of Betelgeuse powering it. That much power is something that species can't adapt to. We know the danger; they tried to absorb many of our ships and took over a small part of one of my ships. More than a thousand casualties were reported, many of them not injured, but just plain old dead. Thankfully, resistance to my rule was swept away, and the Borg are in full retreat. We have a handful of primary targets, and they're on it.
"In the meantime, take this," Acreb finished, handing Picard a small device. "You can use it anytime you want, and it runs on rechargeable power cells. There have been a total of, so far, of over a billion individuals, groups, vessels, and such reported missing. Each of those devices can be used to look through the reports of who has been found, and are labeled alive, wounded, missing, or dead. I pray, for your sake, that your crew is not on the 'dead' list."
"Master Skywalker?" a young voice said at the door. A girl of about sixteen or seventeen was at the door. She had what looked like an ornate headdress that looked like horns colored white with blue strips. She wore a sleeveless red shirt, grey pants with diamonds cut out on her legs, red boots, and sturdy belt. A pair of lightsabers hung at her belt.
"What is it, Snips?" the dark-haired man asked.
"Anakin, several more Republic ships have been brought back," the girl explained. "And they asked for your presence."
"Alright, Ahsoka. Obi-Wan, please stay here," Anakin said as he jogged out of the room.
"Your presence is no longer necessary," Acreb said as he scrolled through some lists. "I have done all I can. You can do nothing more except pray that your crew is neither dead nor hurt." Captain Picard sighed and stormed out of the room, Troi and Obi-Wan right on his heels. Acreb put his hands between his head and said to himself, "Angelica, Marayzk (pronounced ma – rayz – ch)…where are you two when I need you most?"
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"This is absolutely ridiculous!" Picard growled as he and Obi-Wan (who, by that way, was escorting Picard and Troi) headed back to the train station. It didn't take a warp engineer to figure out that things weren't going well.
"How can he not care for over twelve hundred people – and hundreds of children – that are gone with no trace left behind?" he continued to rant.
"Captain, I felt him quite clearly," Troi said, trying to calm him down. "He knows of entire planets, even entire realities that have vanished – countless trillions of innocents gone."
"I sensed no deception within him," Obi-Wan said calmly. "There are much bigger problems on his mind than one starship. By comparison, your crew, and do not take this the wrong way, are…"
"Worthless?!" Picard snapped, stopping and staring down Obi-Wan. "Those men and women have served as the best crew I have ever seen on any starship I've ever been on! They are not insignificant!"
"That's enough!" Troi growled. Her voice changed to a deep growl, and both Picard and Obi-Wan spun around. Troi's eyes had suddenly changed to a deep red, but then returned back to her hazel color a moment later. She took a breath and fell to the floor like one struck dead.
"Counselor!" Picard exclaimed, feeling her neck. As Riker was walking down the hallway, he had seen his girlfriend fall.
"DEANNA!" he yelled, sprinting to the body of his lover. He felt no pulse and yelled, "Someone help! Please!"
Just then, two massive humanoid creatures ran from behind a bend in the hallway ahead. They had on light beige armor, massive biceps, arms, and legs, smooth helmets with emotionless masks that only had holes for the eyes and mouth (even then they were small) and wore long black cloaks. Each one had a double-bladed sword in their hands, golden energy bound around the blades.
"What is the problem?" one of them inquired.
"Man down!" Picard said quickly. "The female has no pulse and decreasing blood flow. Hurry!" The second guard took out an intricate device and swept it over Deanna's body.
"She is unconscious," the guard stated in monotone. "Life signs deteriorating." He hit a button on his chest and said, "Immediate medical transport form sector 5728 Kavar 4-A, subsector 994216178. Two guards and unconscious humanoid female to transport." In a flash of light, the guards and Deanna vanished.
"Hang on, Deanna," Riker whispered. "Hang on."
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Later on, in the medical bay, Deanna awoke surrounded by medical crew. Some were ornate droids, others were beings she had never seen before, but two of them she recognized – Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher and former Chief Medical Officer Pulaski. Pulaski was running a device over her head, and when she saw Deanna's eyes flutter open, she said, "She's awake. Another tranquilizer immediately."
"Pulaski, this will be the fifth one in a row. Even though she's Betazoid, it's still dangerous…"
"Beverley, just give her the dose."
"Wait!" Troi cried out weakly. It came out only as a mere whisper, but it was enough.
"Deanna!" Pulaski exclaimed. She quickly said to someone behind her, "Let's bring her up slowly." Something hissed, and Deanna's senses gradually became stronger. She was slowly able to feel herself aware, and then feel the minds of those around her, until it was strong enough that she could feel almost at peace.
"How are you feeling?" Dr. Crusher asked.
"I'm…" Troi strained to say, a massive stinging pain at her stomach. "I'm in pain…"
"Well, sure you are," Dr. Pulaski said, pulling forward a tray about one foot square. Beverly pulled Troi up slowly until Troi could sit up by herself. She saw on the tray something…something revolting. It looked like some kind of half-tick, half-squid creature covered in spikes and blood. Troi concentrated, and almost screamed out in horror. She sensed the blood was her own.
"That – thing was inside you, eating you up from the inside out," Beverly gravely explained. "However, Captain Acreb was kind enough to give us that." She pointed to a huge, laser-gun like thing and explained, "That's a molecular reconstruction, atomic repair, and bioorganic materialization combination machine. We took out some of your DNA – about fifteen strands or so – and fed it into the machine, which rebuilt the flesh that you had lost." Troi looked down at her stomach and saw rows and rows of stitches on her stomach.
"Sorry about all the unnecessary stitches, but your stomach was getting shredded," Pulaski continued. "It will take a while to heal."
"But – how did this even get into me?" Troi exclaimed.
"Whoa, Troi! Keep your adrenaline and blood pressure down, please!" Beverly exclaimed, trying to get Troi to relax. "If your heart rate goes above 180, you're going to be ten times worse."
"As for the answer for your question," Pulaski said. "Captain! Come in!" Troi had expected to see Acreb come in, but she saw a man with very short blonde hair in white battle armor, black blast-proof tunic, blue markings, a complex shoulder guard, and a helmet with two breathing pipes built into it and blue markings reassembling horns painted on it. A pair of pistols hung at his combat belt.
"Troi, this is Captain Rex, commander of the 501st Legion of the Grand Army of the Republic," Pulaski explained. "He and a few of his men caught a strange event just as you went all red-eyed and collapsed."
"Counselor," Rex said. His voice was hard and determined, clear evidence of a soldier who had been through more battles than he could probably count. "I was not too far down the hallway from where you lost consciousness. At the moment your voice started changing, we caught a strange energy signature, as if the energy from our Venator-class battleships was being, for lack of a better word, compressed into matter right inside you."
"Compressed energy?" Troi asked. "Like a transporter beam?"
"We in the 501st don't know much about your transporters," Rex explained. "But from what we understand, it seems likely, but still improbable. We don't have any kind of transporter technology like you Starfleet have, but I'll have engineers get on it as soon as I can."
transition
Meanwhile, in a lower area of the warship, Guinan was busy at work in a massive lounge/bar/restaurant called Rec Center Three. The place was fifty times the size of Ten-Forward that Guinan ran on the Enterprise, and had a bar with almost every kind of beverage in the universe. It also was able to serve up to five hundred guests at one time, where meals, side dishes, desserts, and delicacies of almost every known galaxy were served. Rec Center Three, Guinan had learned, was only one out of ten centers, the first two smaller, while the other centers were even larger. Rec Center 10, for example, covered an area equivalent to ten football fields and could accommodate thousands. Guinan had been given a job working Rec Center Three. It was really busy, but Guinan was offered meditation time, healing for herself and close friends, and a hefty paycheck. Guinan had to work really hard, but the light music played by professional musicians of all species helped keep her calm.
While Guinan was serving elaborately made drinks to three customers, she sighed deeply. The largest customer, a squid like creature, garbled something unintelligible. His friend, a short, curly-haired, gangster-looking fellow said, "He thinks you're not doing your job."
"Can't you guys be a little nicer?" Guinan asked, trying to keep her cool. However, she sensed hostility – and the guy had a gun.
"Now listen here…" the gangster said, pulling out a gun. Guinan's eyes flashed bright red.
WHOOOM! A blast of wind sent the gangster and his pals right through three tables and into a tumbled pile at the feet of – you guessed it – Acreb. He and three of his pretty female friends were just about to begin eating when the wind blast sent the gangsters flying.
"HEY!" Acreb yelled. The music stopped abruptly, and the whole restaurant seemed to slink away from Acreb. He covered the distance in only three strides – vampire like – and snapped at Guinan, "I thought I told you…"
"I know what you said," Guinan retorted. "What you should say is something to get the customers to behave themselves."
"You don't get to…" Acreb started to say, but Guinan interrupted, "Captain, I – am – FED UP with this bullshit, and I am not going to take anymore. Got that?"
Acreb's eyes turned back to their creepy translucent black. His hands started shaking, and his vertebrae started becoming more and more visible in the back of his shirt. Guinan's eyes went wide, and she stepped back. In fact, the already silent restaurant was getting more spooked to the point where customers were making their leave.
"Do not test me," Acreb warned. He then turned and strode back to his ruined table, where the pieces flew back together with a flick of his hand. From that moment on, Guinan kept her distance – there was no telling was this man was capable of.